Maybe my only 3 star book. I liked it, but have already started to forget liking it after having finished it a week ago. The setting was very unique, and the author did a great job of telling a story about making friends against the backdrop of the scientific community involved in making the H-bomb. The characters were interesting and I was glad that the girls were able to make friends. ( )

Good YA novel about Los Alamos and developing the A-bomb. The green glass sea was how the desert looked after the first blast in New Mexico. It melted the sand! This book is from the viewpoint of a young girl whose parents are scientists. ( )

As I've grown older, it's rare that a young adult novel makes me cry, but this Scott O'Dell award winner had me ugly crying.

It takes place near the end of WWII and follows an almost 11-year-old girl named Dewey Kerrigan as she has to leave her childhood home due to her grandmother’s poor health and rejoin her father who is a scientist working for the government. She travels alone to Los Alamos, New Mexico and reunites with her father in a secret compound of physicists, engineers, chemists, mathematicians, and general military personnel. The Hill doesn’t officially exist and no one is allowed to know about the families living there. The scientists spend all of their waking hours working on a super-secret project that is known amongst the children as “the gadget”. Historical figures like Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, and Robert Oppenheimer make appearances in the book. An astute reader familiar with history knows they are working on The Manhattan Project, but it is never officially stated.

The books skews towards a mature audience because it makes a lot of assumptions that the readers will get the WWII figures, references, and context. It’s beautifully written and the complex layers in the plot gives readers a lot to think about. The characters are interesting and very well written. Dewey has a disability and possibly has autism, but she does not let her disability hinder her in any way. The children living in The Hill all have believable personalities and their personal relationships are what make this novel accessible to young readers. The story teaches us about compassion, bullying, right and wrong choices, the ethics of war, and feelings of not fitting in. The author does a wonderful job of showing growth in a character via another young girl, Suze Gordon.

If you’re looking for a historical fiction novel to supplement a WWII unit and would like to have layered discussions with your students, this is a good choice. ( )

Does a wonderful job of capturing the mentality of the historical era. ( )

One of my favorite books. I just re-read it by reading it to my 11 year old son, who pronounced it Amazing. He's right. ( )